From failure to beatin’ da Maths: Sir Leon helping students embrace the subject

By Vishani Ragobeer

vishani@newsroom.gy

In seemingly comedic videos shared by the Guyana Learning Channel, Sir Leon Beaton can be seen visiting schools and gyaffing with students about a subject many might not consider fun or even easy—Mathematics. 

But Beaton—young, vibrant, and almost blending in with the high school students at times—appears unfazed by any apprehension about the subject. He asks, “Yuh does beat de Maths or de Maths does beat yuh?” before quizzing students. 

The goal is to get them more comfortable with numbers. And Beaton understands why that’s necessary. Months away from his CSEC examinations, a much younger Beaton struggled to pass the subject but he eventually decided to commit to the subject, and, as he says, “give it a chance.”

So the former teacher of the Port Kaituma Secondary School in Region One (Barima- Waini), worked from teaching students and recording fun video lessons shared on his Facebook page, to now leading national Mathematics interventions meant to help students embrace the subject more. 

And it seems like something is working. 

On Friday, Guyana’s Ministry of Education announced the preliminary results of this year’s Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations. A total of 12,685 students wrote the exams this year, and the overall pass rate for Mathematics jumped from 27% to 32%. 

“A jump from 27% to 32% is very significant… that is roughly close to 500 additional students who passed Mathematics,” Beaton told the News Room just after the results were announced. 

And he pointed out that Guyana, and the Caribbean at large (CSEC is administered in 16 countries within the Caribbean Community), has long hovered around Mathematics pass rates of about 20 to 30%. 

So what did Guyana do? Or at least, what do education officials believe contributed to the jump in the pass rate? 

Well, the Mathematics intervention coordinated by Beaton and a team of similarly dedicated ‘Math-heads’ was rolled out with a huge focus on equity. 

One intervention was to equip every student with the tools they needed to learn better: scientific calculators, geometry sets, textbooks, past papers, and other learning materials. 

Beaton said there were too many instances where students managed to get calculators only days before the exams (if they got them at all) and were unable to understand the numbers, letters, and functions on the device. 

It wasn’t just calculators. Something as seemingly easy-to-get as past papers was a challenge for some, limiting their exposure to practical ways of testing what they learnt. 

“Many students, because of where they are, sometimes they may not get to purchase a past paper booklet. I taught in Region One, and you find students had to send out ot Georgetown to get the past paper booklets,” Sir Leon recounted. 

So, the tools were provided. 

Then, Sir Leon believed more exposure to Mathematics learning was necessary. So, the Ministry of Education, as a matter of policy, opted to increase the number of teaching slots for the subject during a school week. Monitors were also employed to support teachers. 

It is believed that these moves, alongside broader initiatives like getting teachers trained and building more schools across the country, contributed to the increased pass rate. 

But there is more work to be done. While the pass rate climbed by 5% (moving from 27% to 32%), 68% of the students who wrote Mathematics failed. The interventions rolled out are still in an infantile stage, and Caribbean-wide interventions are said to be in the works and should be deployed next year, but Sir Leon remains optimistic.

He certainly thinks there’s more work to be done on the psychological side of things. Many students, he contended, are daunted by the subject because it has long carried the tag of being difficult. The Mathematics teacher doesn’t believe that is the case. 

“…once I gave it [Mathematics] a chance, I realised that it was probably one of the easiest subjects,” he said. 

For now, he’ll continue creating the videos with students and working with the team to roll out, monitor, and refine the Mathematics interventions. Beaton hopes many more students will embrace the subject. 

His message to them is a simple one: “Forget about what others say, and just give it a chance.”